John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

“Precisely.”

“But that speech was from half a century ago.”

“It was. And it has taken that half century for the now dominant voices to wrest control of the party from the others. But that does not mean that those who believe in that concept, or in a strong military or a thriving business community, do not still consider themselves to be Democrats. It is only that their voices have been drowned out by the others. And I believe that they are waiting for their party to return to them.

“With regard to the residents of Madison, I would venture a guess that they, too, would admit they were registered as Republicans prior to entering this facility. But the very same uniqueness and purity of this environment, which precipitated the other changes we discussed earlier, have caused an awakening or realization of some fundamental truths within them. If they were to leave Aegis tomorrow, they would be as offended by the dominant voices within that party as, I believe, Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would be if they were to return to America today.”

“So you’re saying that they most reflect the beliefs of the Tea Party?”

“That entity is a phenomenon which arose subsequent to my departure from society. I have discussed the Tea Party with some of the new entrants but don’t know nearly enough about it to say. I get the impression that it is still in its embryonic stages and only time will tell what it may become. And labels, although convenient, are generally misleading more than helpful.”

“Yeah,” Tillie interrupted. “They don’t allow you to drone on for hours.”

Wilson smiled at her and continued, “I do have a tendency to do that. Unfortunately, most of the things I ponder are not easily distilled into bullet statements.”

“It’s a good thing we have all the time in the world,” Tillie huffed.

Shaking his head in amusement, Wilson continued once again, “I believe that the folks at Madison have benefited from the mental clarity afforded by the absence of media, currency, and all of the myriad distractions which are an integral part of the society out there. And as a result, they have formulated a philosophical foundation that rewards excellence, effectively discourages disruptive behavior, holds each person accountable for his or her actions, offers opportunity to all who sincerely seek it, and, most important, recognizes the realities of human nature.

“And the last is the fatal shortcoming of Walden. For Walden, in all of its practices, policies, and procedures, conducts itself on the basis of how we should be, rather than how we truly are.”

“I have a question for you, Elias.”

“What is it, Tillie?”

“What kind of spook are you?”

Hesitating for a moment, Elias asked, “What do you mean?”

“Patriot, pragmatist, or mercenary?”

Elias swung his eyes between Wilson and Tillie. Both of them were waiting for his answer. “For almost all of my life I was a patriot. Hard core. Down to the bottom of my soul. But lately" — Elias stopped and shifted his gaze to the darkness beyond his two companions — “something has changed. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“That’s reasonable enough, considering someone within your own government ordered the killing of your wife.”

“I’m sure that’s a part of it, Wilson. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about things since then, and since I left the agency. I still love my country. I truly do. I would give my life defending its principles and ideals. Yet now…it is as if America isn’t America anymore. It has changed. And not for the better.”

“A very good friend of mine, during the time I was on the outside,” Wilson began, in an effort to help Elias explain his thoughts, “spent his entire life in the same town. When he was born, it had a population of slightly more than one hundred thousand people. The day he passed away, the number had grown to almost two million. In the latter years of his life, he confessed to me many times that his attachment to this community had become irrational, that it was no longer the city he knew or remembered. The newcomers from all over the country had changed it drastically. The old businesses had gone away. The old neighborhoods were no longer recognizable. The politics of the city had transmogrified from a just right-of-center, moderate mentality to what he forlornly characterized as ‘a knee-jerk, left-wing lunacy.’ In one of our final conversations, he told me that what he now loved was the memory of the town, not the reality.”

Donovan Killeen sat at the computer terminal, reading the log as Kreitzmann looked over his shoulder.

“As you can see, Mr. Killeen, the files belonging to Doctor Bonillas have been taken.”

“And you think they were taken by Doctor Boehn?”

“What other explanation is possible?”

“According to the log file, it was Doctor Bonillas’ password that was used. She could have changed her mind about something in her report and decided to remove the files while she rewrote it.”

Kreitzmann’s lips compressed into a tight grin. “I have no doubt that the perpetrator intended for us to come to that conclusion. And we would have, if I hadn’t arrived when I did. According to the tracking logs, the files were tampered with just one or two minutes before I walked in the door. The only person here at that time was Doctor Boehn. If Bonillas had been here, I could not have missed her.”

Killeen swiveled the chair around and looked at Kreitzmann. “What would you like me to do?”

Kreitzmann, still angry from his accidental discovery, snapped, “I would like you to confine Doctor Boehn to the security offices. I would like you to question him. I would like you to commence a full audit of all of our research to determine what else, if anything, has been taken or copied. And I would like you to seize Doctor Boehn’s computer and search his quarters. Aegis being isolated as it is, whatever he may have gathered is probably still there.”

The young man stood up from the chair and faced Kreitzmann. “You want me to do all of that based upon this one circumstantial issue? That seems a bit harsh.”

Kreitzmann’s eyes widened at Killeen’s comments. “One circumstantial issue? Mr. Killeen, you were selected to oversee our security. There is no doubt in my mind that we have been breached and that the culprit is within our midst. Your performance relating to Elias Charon’s visit was less than stellar. You need to decide how to best handle this latest development, or I will choose a replacement for you from our staff. Is that clear?”

Rather than becoming cowed, as Kreitzmann expected from the young security chief, Killeen smiled at him. “Oh, quite clear, Doctor,” he responded, his eyes drifting to somewhere over the scientist’s shoulder. Kreitzmann was not certain but thought that he detected a slight nod from Killeen.

“Then I insist that you get on with….”

One moment Rudy Kreitzmann was speaking; the next he lay unconscious on the floor.

Syndi pulled her car into her assigned parking space and got out, glancing at the empty stall beside her car, and wondered why Yolanda was not at work yet.

“Where’s Yolanda this morning?” she asked the uniformed guard at the entrance as she signed in, checking the sheet for her friend’s signature.

The guard shrugged. “Haven’t seen her yet.”

There was no point in asking him any other questions, so she continued on to the lab area, where she found Bonnie Schwartz sitting at a desk and staring intently at her monitor.

“Have you heard from Yolanda?” she asked Schwartz, who looked up and smiled in greeting.